[Pkg-zfsonlinux-devel] partman-zfs

[Turbo Fredriksson]

On May 12, 2013, at 7:44 AM, Christian PERRIER wrote:

> I can't really test myself but I'd be happy if someone cared eough
> about partman-zfs to keep it maintained.

I've been a Debian GNU/Linux maintainer since '98, but I haven't
been active for a long time. I 'lost' my keys on a backup tape
I can't access (might be a broken drive, might also be the tape).

I'm not sure I want to be it's maintainer (I kind'a lost interest
in being responsible for things I barely use :).

> I you have an Alioth accound, how about validating it for D-I and
> pushing your patch there, then uploading?

How do you mean? I'm mostly worried I break something for someone
else, even though I try my best to be as vigilant to such things
as possible in everything i do, but...


These first patch(es) really could need a few extra eyes to iron
out the most obvious problems. I already have at least two that
I can't seem to fix.

	1. It will create /, /home, /var, /boot Z file systems
	   automatically, without asking where to mount them.
	   Might not be a problem, as long as it's documented :)

	   Also see point three.

	2. If you boot up the installer, create partitions, pool(s)
	   and a root fs and then reboots and select
	   'Configure ZFS->Create root file system', there is no
	   real change in the partition table and D-I will complain
	   that it doesn't see any changes and ask you if you really
	   want to continue without a root/destination file system.

	   I can't find a way to tell D-I that the user HAVE specified
	   a destination. I've done some tries at the end of zfs-base.sh,
	   but neither seems to work...

	3. In the 'device list', no ZFS is shown. This is because
	   partman (or most likely the parted_server) only works with
	   block devices - which a ZFS isn't...

	   This is the main reason I create all the filesystems
	   automatically - there is no list where I can create filesystems.

	   It would be nice if 'someone' could identify exactly where
	   this would be done and possibly also modify that to identify
	   ZFS so that one could there select 'Use as root fs', 'use as
	   /boot' etc...

	   This is tricky, because it will need to work even if ZFS isn't
	   available (which it isn't on any arch but kfreebsd and linux-amd64).

Point three is of course the most notable one. It doesn't give the user
any real feedback that D-I knows what the user knows - install into
the root file system selected under 'Configure ZFS'.

It would be nice if the list would look something like this (taken from
my current test system):


	SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 16.1 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
	     #1  primary  16.1 GB    K  zfs     system
	SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 16.1 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
	     #1  primary  16.1 GB    K  zfs     system
	SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 16.1 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
	     #1  primary  16.1 GB    K  zfs     share
	SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 16.1 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
	     #1  primary  16.1 GB    K  zfs     share
	SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sda) - 16.1 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
	     #1  primary  16.1 GB    K  zfs     share
	/dev/zd0 - 2.1 GB Unknown
	     #1  primary   2.1 GB    K  swap    swap
	share             12.3 GB
             #1  Movies              K  zfs     /movies
             #2  Programs            K  zfs     /programs
             #3  Documents           K  zfs     /documents
	system            12.3 GB
	     #1  ROOT                K  none
	     #2  ROOT/debian         K  zfs     /
	     #3  ROOT/debian/boot    K  zfs     /boot
	     #4  ROOT/debian/home    K  zfs     /home
	     #5  ROOT/debian/var     K  zfs     /var  

The first ten lines is about the devices and it's partition,
nothing strange there, except in my example here, it
will also find what zpool the partition is 'member' of.

Might be nice to indicate it's vdev type (mirror, zraid etc)..

The two lines about the ZVOL is also fine and not much to
discuss (they are as-is from my test system).


And the lines about the ZFS's is what I think it would/should
look like. The pool is at the very left (with it's size) - here I have
two - 'share' and 'system' (I really never liked 'rpool' :) - and the
actual file systems is numbered like partitions would.

If one stand on a pool line and press enter, one get's the choice to
create a new filesystem (which would be sorted alpha numerically
below it). If one stands on a ZFS, then one gets the option to
change it's mount point, any filesystem options that is only for
ZFS etc.

Much like would happen when one press enter on a device or
a partition today...


But as I said, I can't seem to find exactly where this is taken
place. I _think_ it's parted_server that spits out those things,
but I'm not sure...

D-I will in most part it seems, fetch information from /var/lib/partman/devices,
but that get's recreated by 'someone' (or should I say 'something' :).


PS. I default to creating the root fs with the output of 'hostname'
       (my patch will automatically find any existing filesystems that
       might be a root fs - if there's more than one pool, it will ask
       you which one to create on and then find '<pool>/ROOT' in
       a one level search), and after booting the installer for five
       days straight, I now just press enter at the default hostname
       option 'debian' :)
--
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for the night.
Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

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